Hunter-gatherers eating traditional diets had very low rates of the modern “diseases of civilization” including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. When, however, hunter-gatherers switch to eating modern diets they start getting these diseases at high rates. (Of course this correlation doesn’t prove causation, but still...) Also, anthropological evidence from bones show that populations usually became less healthy after adopting agriculture.
Although hunter-gatherers had lower life expediencies than we do, this was mostly due to them dying of stuff (murder, infections, viruses) that doesn’t significantly reduce the life expectancy of Americans. The paleo lifestyle tries to combine the health virtues of modern day and paleolithic man.
I look at paleo as providing Bayesian priors for the health value of different foods. If food X was eaten for a million years by my ancestors whereas food Y was eaten for less than 20,000 years then my prior belief is that food X is probably healthier than food Y. This seems to be the implicit approach taken in the Perfect Health Diet. The value of paleo priors is inversely proportional to the strength of nutrition science.
Forgive me for not having citations to backup these arguments. They are based on my readings of the secondary paleo literature.
When, however, hunter-gatherers switch to eating modern diets they start getting these diseases at high rates. (Of course this correlation doesn’t prove causation, but still...) Also, anthropological evidence from bones show that populations usually became less healthy after adopting agriculture.
Could you at least point me to somewhere (doesn’t have to be a scientific paper) that supports it?
This analysis does not mention cancer, and cancer’s identification as a “modern disease” is greatly confounded by the fact that civilization has brought both increases in lifespan (revealing cancer; breast cancer rates in women are far higher above age 60 than below) and great increases in the ability to detect cancer (and thus link deaths to it). An excellent discussion of these issues is found in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Cancer, the Emperor of All Maladies.
You stated that when “hunter-gatherers switch to eating modern diets they start getting these diseases at high rates.” What evidence is there for this claim in particular for cancer?
The modern “diseases of civilization” have only been really widespread for a century or so, whereas people have been eating grains for about ten thousand years.
Hunter-gatherers eating traditional diets had very low rates of the modern “diseases of civilization” including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. When, however, hunter-gatherers switch to eating modern diets they start getting these diseases at high rates. (Of course this correlation doesn’t prove causation, but still...) Also, anthropological evidence from bones show that populations usually became less healthy after adopting agriculture.
Although hunter-gatherers had lower life expediencies than we do, this was mostly due to them dying of stuff (murder, infections, viruses) that doesn’t significantly reduce the life expectancy of Americans. The paleo lifestyle tries to combine the health virtues of modern day and paleolithic man.
I look at paleo as providing Bayesian priors for the health value of different foods. If food X was eaten for a million years by my ancestors whereas food Y was eaten for less than 20,000 years then my prior belief is that food X is probably healthier than food Y. This seems to be the implicit approach taken in the Perfect Health Diet. The value of paleo priors is inversely proportional to the strength of nutrition science.
Forgive me for not having citations to backup these arguments. They are based on my readings of the secondary paleo literature.
I am particularly interested in the following:
Could you at least point me to somewhere (doesn’t have to be a scientific paper) that supports it?
A bit of it is here:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/life-expectancy-hunter-gatherer/#axzz24p8ZdZs
Here is a good place to ask questions of paleo-knowledgeable people: http://paleohacks.com
This analysis does not mention cancer, and cancer’s identification as a “modern disease” is greatly confounded by the fact that civilization has brought both increases in lifespan (revealing cancer; breast cancer rates in women are far higher above age 60 than below) and great increases in the ability to detect cancer (and thus link deaths to it). An excellent discussion of these issues is found in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Cancer, the Emperor of All Maladies.
You stated that when “hunter-gatherers switch to eating modern diets they start getting these diseases at high rates.” What evidence is there for this claim in particular for cancer?
The modern “diseases of civilization” have only been really widespread for a century or so, whereas people have been eating grains for about ten thousand years.